I’m an electrician and a lot of the older guys at my job have so many knee and back issues but I always see older people who went to the gym every day look and feel great
In: Biology
Because when you do manual labour jobs, you’re using your body in whatever way you can get the job done. Craned over, back bent awkwardly, on your knees for hours… all things that are terrible form and posture. Because the alternative is often that a task becomes impossible.
People who go to the gym regularly and work out often are paying attention to their form and making sure they’re doing things right.
The gym is just a controlled environment for your physical activity.
When you lift weights, you almost always do it with correct form that doesn’t cause injuries, and you don’t work the same muscles every day. And if you do get injured, you just don’t work out that muscle for a while and let it heal.
Manual labor jobs you tend to do the same movements over and over, wearing on the same joints and muscles every day, and not always with ideal form. And you also tend to tough out minor injuries, because you need to work to make money.
Because if you’re in the gym and you get too tired, you go home. If you’re in the gym and something starts to hurt – you stop doing what you’re doing. When you’re at work and something hurts – you don’t get to choose what you’re doing. And you don’t get to stop. You’re stuck doing it for the rest of your EIGHT HOURS. Or – you get fired.
Nobody spends 8+ hours a day in a gym (well, trainers, they don’t count.) and a huge part of training in a gym and AVOIDING injury is limiting how much you do each motion. Construction means shoving your body however you need to, all day long, to do the job. Proper exercise means a limited amount of time doing specific motions in good form, all of which prevents injury.
Just to add: manual labor also isn’t symmetrical in addition to being performed in odd positions/postures. For example, apart from maybe some gifted carpenter, no one is hammering with both arms in an alternate fashion. Since a lot of actions are led with your dominant arm, you’re compensating in other places, so you’re not “exercising” in a way that’s easier on your body or allow proper periods of rest.
I used to own a business with 30 factory workers and if you work on your feet with your hands all day every day by the time you’re in your mid-50s your body is shot. This is following all the rules, taking breaks, etc. I think farmers have it worse and Construction is obviously bad. Everyone’s answer has been. Interesting and by my estimation very correct.
At the gym your movements and form are tightly controlled. Your sets/reps are limited. And if you do feel an injury coming on, you have the option to back off. You can’t do that when it’s your job. In a manual labor job you have to power through minor injuries until they become major injuries.
When your at the gym you stop when you get hurt. When you need to get stuff done to pay the bills your forced to work through the pain day after day
Doing something for 8 hours a day is different from doing something for 2 hours.
Doing something in countless repeats is different from having a set of 20 on this machine,break, having a set of 20 on that machine.
Doing something on an ergonomically designed equipment and personally chosen weights is different from doing something in forced postures and/or moving given weights that are too heavy for you because that’s the package size of concrete.
Being able to take a rest of a few days if you are injured is different from not having a sick leave.
Gym machines usually don’t produce noise, dust, chemical fumes etc that often cause the actual damage in physical labor.
Its way too repetitive.
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Unlike in gyms there is nobody who can teach you how to correctly move.
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